The present invention relates in general to a board game apparatus and is concerned more particularly with a board game played with a plurality of players which is both entertaining and educational and develops and improves one's powers of observation, concentration and memory.
Various types of board games exist such as the well known Monopoly game which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,026,082. This game is primarily an entertainment game of barter and is more involved with an element of luck than skill. This prior art board game does not require any memorization.
Accordingly one object of the present invention is to provide a board game apparatus that is preferably played by two to four players and which is designed to aid and develop the memory by providing an environment for the practice of numerous memory techniques. There are many memory techniques for which the game is ideally suited to test and develop, among them, as examples being memory by association and word substitution.
Memory by association is a method of remembering wherein a story is created which links two otherwise unrelated data. When one of the data to be remembered is apparent, familiar or both, it makes recalling the unrelated data easier.
For example if a person needed to remember to take out a bank loan, they might envision one without "strings attached". They might actually picture themselves accepting a loan and cutting off some strings. The day on which they needed to take out a loan, they would tie a string around their finger. Later on during the course of a busy day seeing the string tied to their finger, would remind them about taking out the loan with no strings attached.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a board game apparatus which requires memorization and is easily adaptable to the memorization of a number of different types of information. For example, the game can be played using memory cards that show the presidents of the United States. With this game the participants may learn, not only the names of the presidents, but also the order in which they were president. The game may be provided with a number of different memory card decks. Other decks may contain for example the states and their capitals or the largest lakes in the world. Blank decks may be provided in which players may provide their own data in the necessary format. Concentration is developed by quick rewards for paying attention and penalties for not doing so. Players also develop powers of observation by studying illustrations provided on some sets of memory cards and associating them with the accompanying illustration.